AMA: Cisco Director of Product Management, Yogesh Paliwal on Product Development Process

TL,DR: Without knowing specifics of your situation, it seems like you have right ration for now. Long version Process don't decide business, business decides processes Dont go by set rules in these things, every situation is diferent Scenario1 : You are CEO/Cofounder of company also playing only PM Your responsibilities include general management, business development and bunch of other things. if you are well funded and/or can afford with cash flow. find a full time PM who shares your vision. r ...Read More

Control is tricky word. product development is organized chaos with some rythm to it. I am not an expert in sprint planing, but engineers should Technical sounding board or everything that has been take in current one also have visibility to few sprint (when possible) to lay ground work for things that may require "architectural changes' Have objective critiera for selecting features and provide. visibility wherever you are using subjective discretion. communication is key Also clearly articulat ...Read More

Its great question. We have bunch of teams where dedicated QA role didn't exist, Making sure product quality is up-to required goal was left on developers, Product Managers and early Beta customers. This approach works best with early stage of product adoption, that has limited uses cases and great "MTTR" once issue have identified to anything missed can be quickly resolved. We also have teams where everything has dedicated QA role, These are team where product is deployed in multiple vertical/g ...Read More

There is no such thing as "rogue engineer" everyone comes to job to best of their abilities however I understand the nuanced question. here is my take Bunch of tools that helps keep all ducks in a row. Clarity: About goals and non-goals in given specific period Strategy fit v/s tangential : if not fitting goals in specific criteria but requires some exploration. if it doesn't drop, "good" feature should align with your strategy else its NOT good. % Allocation for innovation : Lets say 80% for ru ...Read More